


Words to lead you forward

by halfeatenmoon



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Mild self-harm reference, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-18
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-12-03 18:05:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11537604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfeatenmoon/pseuds/halfeatenmoon
Summary: Rey had always had marks on both arms. She didn't know what they meant, although she eventually realised they were words. Names. She thought they must be her parents' names, there for her to remember, or to guide her home. There had never been anyone else in the universe she wanted to find.





	Words to lead you forward

The marks had been there on her forearms for as long as Rey could remember. Blocky black marks, three on her left arm and four on her right. Nobody had put them there, as far as she knew, but maybe it had happened before she could remember, before she was left on Jakku.

She asked Unkar Plutt about them, but he didn't give her much of an answer.

"Human markings," he grunted, when she pressed him. "You all have them. They mean as little as warts on a Happabore."

It was a disappointing answer, but about as much as she'd expected. She knew not to press him when he was done talking, and hurried off to clean more scrap before he could find something even more unpleasant to keep her busy.

 

She was ten when she found out that they did mean something. A visitor trawling for parts spotted her while she was hauling scrap around the junkyard and let out a low whistle.

"What?" she asked, suspiciously. She was already wary of how the adults around her looked at her. She was already learning how grown ups saw her 'potential', of how 'potential' really meant they saw her as someone they could use. And she was starting to suspect that Unkar was using her as much as he was caring for her, that she'd be better off striking out on her own as soon as she could figure out how.

"You're doubly blessed, child," the young man said. He crouched down in front of her and pulled back the sleeve of his cloak, showing some markings on his forearm, too. "Most of us only ever have one mark of blessing our entire lives, but you've been given two."

Rey stared at her bare arms, the black marks standing out on her pale skin. "They're blessings?"

"Of course," he said, curiously. "Nobody's ever told you?"

She just shrugged.

"Well, someone should have." He glanced at her arms again and she hid them behind her back, suddenly bashful. "It's okay if you don't want me to see them. I just think you should know what they mean. They're names."

"Whose names?"

"The names of two people who are very special to you," he said, after a moment's thought. "Maybe they're not around here, in fact, they probably aren't. But those marks are there to help you find them."

Rey spent the rest of the day wrapping rags around the marks on her arms and occasionally pulling the rags down to stare at them again. All this time she'd thought they were a weird aberration, but Unkar hadn't known. They meant someone special.

They must be her parents' names, she decided, as she fell asleep that night. What other two people in the world could be special enough that their names were right there on Rey's body?

 

Rey was twelve by the time she learned to read. She picked it up from an older Twi'ilek scavenger out in the desert. Shasta didn't take pity on her, didn't offer Rey any charity, and Rey wouldn't have taken it, anyway. Out here, at least, people who offered you something usually expected something in return, and Rey didn't need any more debt when she'd only just escaped from Unkar.

But Shasta said she wanted company out there in the wilds at night, and if Rey didn't want company then she did want to learn. So they sat together by a campfire in the desert's dusk and scratched letters into the sand, Rey learning their shapes one at a time.

"Finn," she exclaimed, on the third night, having figured out the word on her right arm at last. It was much later in the evening when she finally cracked the left arm, 'Poe', and Shasta was already on the verge of sleep.

"Do you know what they mean?" she whispered, as she climbed into the portable dome where Shasta had been sleeping at night.

"No," Shasta muttered. "I know it's a human thing."

"They're my parents," Rey said, firmly. "I had to find out their names because they're coming to get me one day, and I might look different, but this way I know who they are."

"Is that so?" Shasta said, drowsily. "Look, I nearly have enough parts for repairs, now. I'll be leaving within the week."

"You could have left in a day if you'd gotten parts from Unkar."

"Pah!" Shasta's eyes snapped open. "I'd rather live in this dustbowl with you forever than trade with that leech. But at any rate, I have what I need and I'll be leaving soon. Why don't you come with me, and we can go looking for your parents, too?"

Rey thought about it, just for a moment, but it was never really a choice.

"No, I'm staying. They're coming back for me. I'm not going anywhere until they do."

 

Rey was fifteen when she first tried to scrub the marks off in a fit of rage.

It had started off as good a day as any. She woke up and ate her remaining meal ration and watched the sun rise over the dunes, and with the last of her meal ration gone, she hopped on her speeder and headed off to the ship graveyard to get to work.

Only today was the sort of day where the sand was even looser than usual, whipped up by the winds the night before, and she had to claw for every handhold to get up there. And then she cut her leg climbing, and the wound, though shallow, stung with sweat and sad with every move she made. The best pieces she found were absolutely soaked in grease and scored with sand, and though she scrubbed them at the Niima washing stations until her fingertips bled, Unkar still only gave her a quarter portion in total for them.

By the time she was done trying to bargain with him - fruitlessly, at that - it was getting dark and she was already risking danger from the nocturnal wildlife in the dunes. But she was exhausted from a long, hard day, with nothing to eat since that morning, and she had to stop to scarf down some of the meager ration she'd earned just to make sure she wouldn't fall off her speeder with exhaustion before she made it all the way home.

The ride settled her a little, at least. She knew how dangerous it was at night, but the rare occasions she got caught out often made her want to stay out in it, too. The air was cool and she could enjoy the feeling of the air on her skin instead of hurrying to get out of the sun as soon as possible. She was almost starting to enjoy herself when she rounded the top of the dune and her AT-AT home came into sight - until she was attacked by a snarling, sharp-clawed reptile about three times her size.

She had her quarterstaff at her side, of course she did. She always did. But she was caught off-guard, despite knowing the danger, because she'd been enjoying the evening air so much. When the beast hit the speeder and knocked it off balance, she was almost thrown off. She was thrown forwards, over the hull of the speeder, and she was scrambling just to stay on it instead of being thrown to the ground where she'd had no hope of getting out of this alive.  
She found a handhold and clung to the hold, breathing heavily. At least the speeder righted itself once she stopped moving, and she didn't have to worry about it being thrown into a spin. But now she was speeding backwards towards the ship graveyard, unable to see any obstacle in her path, and staring down the beast that was perched in what should be her seat.

Slowly, without breaking eye contact with the snarling animal, she tried to reach down the side of the hull towards the net that held her possessions. The staff was going to be hard to get out; the end closest to her was shoved right down in the bottom corner of the net, almost out of her reach. But the other end was pointed right at the beast, and if she could get her hands on in then maybe she could land enough of a blow to shake it off.

It was following her movements in the dark now, though, creeping slowly towards her across the top of the speeder. If she took a moment longer to untangle the staff she'd have a better chance of fighting it off, but in the heightened tension she tried to make a quick grab, but the beast leapt at the exact same time and all she could do was roll right off the speeder, gripping her staff tightly and hoping that she could pull it free instead of getting dragged through the sand behind it.  
For a terrifying moment she was yanked around wildly as the speeder wobbled. She couldn't tell which way was up, couldn't orient herself at all except for the feel of the staff in her hands and the beast's hot breath coming down on her in the cool evening air. Then the staff came free and she went head over heels into the sand, throwing her arms out wildly to try to get to her feet.

She found herself standing and quickly put herself between the speeder and her sanctuary, keeping her back to her home and her eyes on the beast. It hadn't noticed she was gone yet, still clinging to the speeder and clawing at the sides while she was backing towards her home. She'd made half the distance in a few long steps before it looked up and met her eyes again, and they were back in the standoff. It didn't make a move, just perched on the speeder with its tail lashing as she got closer and closer to the AT-AT.

_It thinks I'm backing into a corner,_ she realised, and stepped a little faster. The creature still hadn't moved when she felt about behind her with her foot and found the edge of the metal door.

She came so close to getting inside before the beast even moved. It was a split second after she swung the door open that it struck, bounding across the sand in a fraction of the time it had taken Rey to cover it. She slipped inside and heaved the door shut as hard as she could - if the creature got inside then she really would be cornered and it would all be over. It shoved one talon through the gap with a roar of triumph that quickly turned to pain when she jammed the door shut on it. The claws reached, desperately, grabbing at her arm and slicing through her sleeves instantly. Rey cried out too, but she clenched her teeth and didn't let go, didn't let up for a moment. She set her feet against the rim of the doorway and pulled the hatch even tighter, until the beast's grip weakened and its roars turned to whimpers. Then she let up the pressure, just for a moment, and the beast snatched its talon back before she pulled the hatch in and locked it tight.

She's safe. Rey's safe, she's locked in tight, and she's escaped the desert creature with only two shallow gashes through the name on her right forearm. But she's shaking with adrenaline and wants to cry with the fear and the comedown and losing her speeder and her day's work and just feeling so alone. And then she looks at the mark on her arm, scratched and bleeding and cut up where it used to say 'Finn', and for the first time ever she lets herself really, really hate her family.  
"Why would you do this?" she snarled, the sound echoing off the metal walls around her. "Why would you leave me here to starve and fight and deal with _this?_ "

She looks down at her left arm, the one where the word 'Poe' is still undamaged, and with the force of ten years of un-felt hate she started clawing at it with her injured right arm as though she can scratch the word right off.

She scratches and snarls "I hate you" and "Don't come back" until her whole forearm feels hot and her snarls gradually subside into sobs again. Then she takes a deep breath, looks at her bleeding right arm again and sets to work bandaging it up.

She really doesn't feel any better, but once she's cried herself out at least all the fight has gone out of her, and when she lies down with her arms covered up she falls straight into a deep sleep.

The next morning she finds her speeder half-buried in a sand dune, battered and out of fuel but mostly fine, even if her day's rations are gone. She sighs, charges it up and gets straight back to work. There's nobody else here to feed her, after all.

 

She forgives her parents. She forgives them over and over again. Sometimes she wears sleeves for weeks on end without taking them off because she feels so angry at them that she can't bear to look at the names, and some days when she's really angry she tells herself that as soon as she finds a ship to repair herself, or saves up enough money to pay for a trip herself, she's going to get out of here. But when the chance comes up, she stays. She always knew she was going to stay.

Except that she ends up fleeing the planet with a small droid and a man not much older than her. She's sure that she's going to go back to Jakku, and she really does mean it, but for a moment she forgets all about Jakku and her family when she finds out his name is Finn.

It doesn't mean anything, she told herself, moments later, when she found herself in the bowels of the ship, trying to stop it from poisoning them both. She knows there must be plenty of people out there in the galaxy named Finn. And the man who fled Jakku with her was _definitely_ not her father. She did wonder, for a moment, whether he'd seen the name on her arm and taken it for himself, but she'd had the marks covered the whole time they'd been at Niima Outpost. It didn't mean anything.

She also forgot to worry about it when Finn turned out to be incompetent at handing her the right tools to stop the ship from killing them both.

 

When she finally met Poe in person, the name didn't even register at first. She had at least paused with recognition when she found out Finn's name, even though they'd just escaped a frying pan to find they were hurtling into a fire. When she meets Poe, it's the last thing on her mind. She learned she was a Jedi and watched Han Solo die and survived fighting his evil son, and Finn, the one anchor she had left, is unconscious with no signs of waking.

She walked into the medbay with eyes only for Finn. Poe rose to meet her, and she shook his hand when he offered it. She barely heard his name, though she registered the kindness of his smile and the warmth of his hand. Then she fell into the chair by Finn's bedside, opposite Poe, and reached for his hand like it was a lifeline.

For a while, she just watches, taking in that he's here and alive, if unresponsive. That's his hand in hers, warm and soft. The last few days have been hell and maybe she can't talk to him, but at least they're both going to live. The exhaustion of all the loss and fighting finally starts to pile up on her now that she's safe and Finn's safe and there's no urgency to keep her going. It's only the sound of Poe loudly clearing his throat that keeps her from nodding off right there.

"There are beds, if you'd like to sleep," Poe said, gently.

"Yes. That... that sounds great." Rey swallowed, though, and looked back at Finn's face.

Poe chuckled quietly. "Yeah, I don't want to leave him, either. And I want to get to know you better, too."

That did surprise her. "Me?"

"Yeah, of course," he gave a wry smile. "I'm just sorry we had to meet like this."

"How else would we meet?"

"I don't know," he shrugged. "I've imagined it like a hundred different ways, usually a lot more romantic than sitting by our other soulmate while he's in a coma."

Rey stared. "What do you mean, you've imagined it? I lived alone in the desert until two days ago!"

"Yeah, but... wait, don't you have the marks too? That would suck if this was one-sided." Poe shucked off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. And there, stamped into his skin, was her name.

"Poe," she realised. She rushed to get her sleeves off, fumbling as she went, until she was looking at the black marks that had been sitting there her whole life, the ones she'd tried to stop looking at years ago. " _You're_ Poe."

"And you're Rey. And you have Finn's name on the other arm, right?" He held out his other forearm and there was 'Finn', just the same as her own markings. "I'll bet you anything Finn's got both our names, too, if the First Order bastards didn't burn them off. See, we were meant for each other. That's why I've been waiting to meet you both for such a long time." He smiled, sheepishly. "Well, he was FN-2187 before. I'm the one who decided to call him Finn, and I thought maybe it was wishful thinking and it didn't really count. But if you're here, and he's here, then I must have been right. You're the ones I've been waiting for."

"I don't understand," Rey said. Her hands were starting to shake where they lay before her on her lap. "I don't understand what this means."

"Hey, it's okay." Poe knelt down beside her. "It's a lot to take in. We don't have to decide what it means yet, and we kind of can't decide until Finn wakes up, anyway."

"No, I don't know how it can be you," Rey said, on the verge of tears. "I... I always thought these were the names of my parents."

"Oh," Poe said, softly. "You didn't know your parents, I guess?"

"They left me," she whispered. "On Jakku. And there weren't many other humans, and they told me... I don't know, that these were the names of people who were important to me, and I couldn't think of anyone else... I thought it meant I would find them again..."

"Oh, Rey. Oh, that sucks that they left you, and I'm so sorry."

She braced her forearms on the bed, and buried her face on them, her eyes closed against the sight of the marks. She was still so tired, but now sleep seemed impossible with all the thoughts whirring in her head. She heard the scrape of another chair and realised Poe was sitting down beside her. A moment later, he asked if he could rub her back, and she nodded her head without getting up.

"The people who told you that weren't wrong, but there's a lot more to it than that," he began. "They're soulmate marks. They tell you the name of the person, or people, out there in the galaxy, who are... who are meant for you, I suppose. It can be family members, sometimes, or friends, but most often soulmates become lovers."

Rey took a deep breath and pushed herself up. "Is that what you want us to be?" she asked, looking at Poe, warily.

He shrugged. "We could be. We don't have to be."

"I'd like that," she said.

Poe's eyebrows shot up, and she couldn't blame him. She was surprised at how certain she sounded, too. But as shocked and exhausted and sad as she was, this had made sense. Maz Kanata had told her that her parents were gone, never to come back, and she had to stop looking to the past. She'd been waiting for her parents all this time when the marks on her arms had really been pointing her somewhere else. To here. And when she'd left her only, miserable home behind, there was nothing that sounded better than having a new start with two people who loved her.

"Do you love me?" she asked, just as certainly.

"It might be a bit early to say," Poe replied, with a laugh.

"Really? Because I've known Finn for two days and I love him."

Poe hesitated for a moment before he said "Yeah, me too. On both counts."

"Then I'm sure we're going to love each other, too."

She felt shy for the first time, then, and turned away from Poe. She reached out to Finn's hand again, curled her fingers around his. Comforting, familiar, even though two days ago he had been a stranger and she'd snapped at him to stop taking her hand. After a moment, Poe reached over Finn's body to take his other hand. Then he shuffled his chair closer to Rey's. Carefully, watching her the whole time, he put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close.

"We don't have to rush into anything," he said, again. "You don't have to decide what you want right now. We have to talk to Finn, too. And you know, it's okay if you don't love me."

"Okay," Rey said. She leaned against his side and closed her eyes. He was solid, like the machine she used to live in, but warm. She couldn't remember ever falling asleep like this, with someone living and breathing beside her. It was strange, but nice. She could get used to this. She wanted to get used to this. But she forced her eyes open once more to look at their arms side by side on Finn's bed, both with Finn's name written across them.


End file.
